Part 80 (2/2)
The keeper showed the certificates.
”Ah!” said Senex; ”poor young man. Now don't agitate yourself. It is all for your good. Pray go quietly. Very painful, very painful.” And he hobbled away as fast as he could. It is by s.h.i.+rking the painful some live to be silvery old.
Next he tried a policeman. Bobby listened to him erect as a dart.
The certificates were shown him.
He eyed them and said sharply, ”All right.” Nor could Alfred's entreaties and appeals to common sense attract a word or even a look from him. Alfred cried ”Help! murder! If you are Englishmen, if you are Christians, help me.”
This soon drew a crowd round him, listening to his fiery tale of wrong, and crying ”Shame, shame! Let him go.” The keepers touched their heads, winked, and got out and showed the certificates; the crowd melted away like wax before those two suns of evidence (unsworn). The train moved on.
It was appalling. How could he ever get free? Between his mind and that of his fellows there lay a spiritual barrier more impa.s.sible than the walls of fortified cities.
Yet, at the very next station, with characteristic tenacity of purpose, he tried again; for he saw a woman standing near, a buxom country woman of forty. Then he remembered that the Naked Eye was not yet an extinct inst.i.tution among her s.e.x. He told her his tale, and implored her to use her own eyes. She seemed struck, and did eye him far more closely than the men had: and told the keepers they ought to be ashamed of themselves; he was no madman, for she had seen madmen. They showed her the certificates.
”Oh, I am no scholar!” said she contemptuously; ”ye can't write my two eyes out of my head.”
The keeper whipped off Alfred's cap and showed his shaven crown.
”La! so he is,” said she, lowering her tone; ”dear heart, what a pity.
And such a pretty young gentleman.” And after that all he could say only drew the dew of patient pity to her eyes.
The train went on, and left her standing there, a statue of negative clemency. Alfred lost heart. He felt how impotent he was. ”I shall die in a madhouse,” he said. He s.h.i.+vered in a corner, hating man, and doubting G.o.d.
They reached Dr. Wycherley's early in the morning. Alfred was shown into a nice clean bedroom, and asked whether he would like to bathe or sleep.
”Oh, a bath,” he said; and was allowed to bathe himself. He had not been long in the water when Dr. Wycherley's medical a.s.sistant tapped at the door, and then entered without further ceremony--a young gentleman with a longish down on his chin, which, initiated early in the secrets of physiology, he was too knowing to shave off and so go to meet his trouble. He came in looking like a machine, with a note-book in his hand, and stood by the bath side dictating notes to himself and jotting them down.
”Six contusions: two on the thorax, one on the abdomen, two on the thighs, one near the patella; turn, please.” Alfred turned in the water.
”A slight dorsal abrasion; also of the wrists; a severe excoriation of the ankle. Leg-lock, eh?”
”Yes.”
”Iron leg-lock. Head shaved. Large blister. Good! Any other injuries external or internal under old system?”
”Yes, sir, confined as a madman though sane, as _you,_ I am sure, have the sense to see.”
”Oh, never mind that; we are all sane here--except the governor and I.”
He whipped out, and entered the condition of the new patient's body with jealous minuteness in the case-book. As for his mind, he made no inquiry into that: indeed he was little qualified for researches of the kind.
At breakfast Alfred sat with a number of mad ladies and gentlemen, who by firmness, kindness, and routine, had been led into excellent habits: the linen was clean and the food good. He made an excellent meal, and set about escaping: with this view he explored the place. n.o.body interfered with him; but plenty of eyes watched him. The house was on the non-restraint system. He soon found this system was as bad for him as it was good for the insane. Non-restraint implied a great many attendants, and constant vigilance. Moreover, the doors were strong, the windows opened only eight inches, and that from the top: their framework was iron, painted like wood, &c. It was next to impossible to get into the yard at night: and then it looked quite impossible to get any further, for the house was encompa.s.sed by high walls.
He resigned all hope of escape without connivance. He sounded a keeper; the man fired at the first word. ”Come, none of that, sir; you should know better than tempt a poor man.”
Alfred coloured to the eyes and sighed deeply. To have honour thrown in his face, and made the reason for not aiding him to baffle a dishonourable conspiracy! But he took the reproof so sweetly, the man was touched, and by-and-bye, seeing him deeply dejected, said good-naturedly, ”Don't be down on your luck, sir. If you are really better, which you don't look to have much the matter now, why not write to the Commissioners and ask to be let out?”
”Because my letters will be intercepted.”
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